500 balloons

[SoCalDem]

My son sent me this ...I thought I would share




Once a group of 500 people were attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each person a balloon. Each person was then asked to write their name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

The people were then let into that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written on it within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon.
Then, the speaker asked each person to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The speaker then began, "This is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.

Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of human life...the pursuit of happiness."

[840high]

1. k/r

[OnyxCollie]

2. I see what he did there.

[badtoworse]

3. Simple and the same time, profound

[HereSince1628]

4. Pervert! Happiness is a stretchy membrane swollen beyond its normal shape?

I think you need a psychoanalyst!

HOW DARE YOU assume that you can identify MY happiness!

As if MY happiness is just an inflated balloon with my name on it!

Happiness???? Really!? This is just a bag of breath with someone else koodies in it!

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Maybe they were

inflated condoms.

[hootinholler]

11. Yes! Ask any kid. n/t

[Brother Buzz]

6. Heaven and Hell

An old Chinese parable about heaven and hell

In Hell, all the people are seated around a long dining table piled with delicious food. Each of them has three-foot-long chopsticks. They are all starving because they are only trying to feed themselves.

In Heaven, same set up, long table, tons of food, three-foot-long chopsticks, but everyone is eating well because they are feeding each other.

[FiveGoodMen]

8. Heaven is socialist

and Hell is present-day American in that story.

[Brother Buzz]

9. Just less than half of this nation, and shrinking

And you can thank Ronald Reagan, father of the "Me" Generation

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Probably a good % were accidently popped

in the initial mad dash, so there may have been some (unhappy) balloonless people.

[jtuck004]

10. I would be surprised if some of those people didn't start cooperating on their own because that

is what many people do naturally. But that would kind of deflate the story

Still, it's a really good lesson in cooperative values, and how your welfare may depend as much on what your neighbor does as what you do.

Thank you.

[meegbear]

12. ...

[bigwillq]

13. Cool story.

K and R

[geardaddy]

14. That's too many balloons.

[hfojvt]

17. and the wrong color

[geardaddy]

18. Right!

[penultimate]

19. heh... what came to my mind too

[yuiyoshida]

15. I suddenly have a craving for

Butterscotch ..

[Tikki]

16. ..or caviar...

Tikki

[cui bono]

20. Not just giving someone else their happiness and knowing you will get yours...

but it also shows that when you work together you can accomplish more than when you work alone, for yourself.

[baldguy]

21. Also illustrates how we can only find solutions to common problems by working together.

Conservatism is bent on forcing people to work out solutions to common problems by themselves.

[B Calm]

22. Sounds like socialism. . .

[marions ghost]

23. This would be an excellent exercise for young kids

you could do it with balls of paper or something not poppable.

This needs to be learned early.